Observation is a necessary professional tool that all early childhood teachers should have for understanding and assessing children’s development and learning and their professional acts (Wortham & Hardin, 2019). When the importance of teacher quality is considered, observation skills have a critical position among teachers’ capabilities (Halpin & Kiehler, 2015). Systematic observation for intentional teaching can be administered in various formats, including visual and written records, children’s narratives, and checklists (Bruce et al., 2014; Dunphy, 2010; MacDonald, 2007; Wortham & Hardin, 2019). Before starting the observation, the teacher should determine the objective and purpose, the time to be allocated, the place, and the form in which the observation will be made and recorded (Peterson & Elam, 2020; Wortham & Hardin, 2019). Based on their observations, teachers decide how the learning environment will be organized to support children’s development. The analysis during and after the observation informs the teacher about what children need, which materials and learning environments are preferred by children most or least, and the ways to support children’s learning and participation. Moreover, by analyzing children’s interactions during observation, they decide how to give them feedback and guide their learning experiences (Aras, 2019). Thus, teachers make educational decisions to improve their acts and children’s development by considering data-driven observation. With the increasing importance of evidence-informed practice, recent studies show the need for systematic observation and recording of children’s learning processes, which can provide information about the teachers’ acts regarding teaching quality. Concurrently, this need has brought an increasing responsibility to observe the children in the classroom in a qualified and systematic way (Damjanovic & Blank, 2018; Goldhaber & Smith, 1997; Peterson & Elam, 2020; Seitz & Bartholomew, 2008). Moreover, it can be understood how teachers use the data they obtained from observation (Gullo, 2005; Hatch et al., 2001). For this reason, early childhood teachers need to know what they do with which purpose, called intentional teaching, and make decisions based on the data they collect. However, there is less research on teachers’ perspectives on observation as a professional tool and their observation experiences with the purpose of their acts based on the data they collect (Birkeland et al., 2020).
Considering all these, the current study aims to contribute to the literature by examining teachers’ perspectives and self-reported practices regarding observation as a professional tool. As it is claimed, a clear understanding and interpretation of the issue of observation are crucial to achieving assessment goals (Alvestad & Sheridan, 2015; Aras, 2019; Goldhaber & Smith, 1997; Knauf, 2020; Lindh & Mansikka, 2022; Yılmaz et al., 2021) as at the center of assessment in early childhood education (Wortham & Hardin, 2019), there is a lack of knowledge about the early childhood teachers’ experience as a professional tool. Therefore, the current study seeks to answer the following research questions:

1. How do early childhood teachers define observation as a professional tool?
2. What are early childhood teachers’ experiences with observation as a professional tool?
3. How do early childhood teachers use the data obtained from observations as a professional tool?

The current study was designed as a qualitative research methodology via Interpretative Phenomenological Approach (IPA) to get how and what participants experience a particular issue (Smith & Osborne, 2007). Hence, IPA was used to get information for interpreting participants’ experiences deeply from their point of view (Smith & Osborne, 2007). Due to trying to achieve participants’ detailed experience and view regarding observation as a professional tool, IPA was selected as an appropriate method in the current study. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) studies require a long and detailed process to analyze the participants’ transcripts. Besides, the study should include an in-depth examination of the perceptions and understandings of the group rather than making general judgments. The participants of the current study consist of a total of five early childhood educators. IPA studies try to create a homogeneous sample. Random sample selection does not contribute much to the study. Instead, selecting a purposive sample is recommended (Smith & Osborne, 2007). For the current study, three-interview series was used to investigate and understand the experiences of teachers. The semi-structured interview forms created by the researchers consists of three steps with open-ended questions designed to explore the experiences of early childhood teachers. Dolbeare and Schuman (1982) designed the three-interview series to enrich and contextualize the participant’s experience with this approach. The current study was based on some evaluation criteria to ensure trustworthiness. For a qualitative study to be valid and reliable, Lincoln and Guba (1985) emphasize that the confidence in the truth of the findings (credibility), their applicability in different contexts (transferability), their consistency and repeatability (dependability), and their independence from the researcher’s bias, motivation, and interest (confirmability) should be ensured. In this sense, to establish trustworthiness and credibility, researchers spent enough time with them to understand their phenomenon related to observation as a professional tool. So much so that they conducted interviews with them over one month. Lincoln and Guba (1985) called this technique prolonged engagement. Moreover, analyst triangulation (Patton, 1999) is used; thus, three researchers reviewed the findings. These researchers also reflect their understanding of study situations during the analysis (reflexivity).

The proposed research aimed to make sense of teachers’ experiences of using observation as a professional tool. Overall, the study can broaden the current understanding of using observation as a professional tool. In this context, the preliminary findings of the data obtained using IPA demonstrated that teachers experience observation as a decision mechanism for their acts and practices. They use observation for evidence-based practice. On the other hand, teachers stated that they develop their observational understanding according to the dynamics in the classroom. Other preliminary and descriptive analyzes remain to be analyzed. In this way, the research contributes to the assessment literature, especially in early childhood education, by making sense of experiences related to observation as a professional tool.

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